Explore Worldwide

Agree with some reviews below.

Not as good as they use to be.

They seem to be driven by profit more (once they have your booking), than customer satisfaction.

This company is truly hopeless. They charge a lot and do everything on the cheap. It’s been to visit Peru but the hotels are generally dumps, unclean and unsafe. Flights booked through Explore were cancelled and we were left to sort it all out. No help from these clowns All they would say is sort. It out yourselves. The tour was 3 days late when it started and now we have spent 2 days getting home because of yet more cancelled flights.

Utterly indifferent and unable to orgnasise anything. The only saving grace was the tour guide but he can be booked through other more reputable agencies.

DO NOT USE THIS TERRIBLE COMPANY

My partner and I have just completed BUHB Burma Highlights + Ngapali Beach extension. There were only three people on this tour and luckily we had a great local tour leader. The itinerary was ok but everything was done on the cheap - cheap Chinese hotels, cheap boats (one of which broke down), etc. There was nothing of quality or any nice extras. The hotels were not centrally located and one very noisy (built over a major train station). Explore seems to be targetting older retired couples in their 60s, mainly Brits and north Americans. Their agent in Australia Cox & Kings is appalling - slow to respond and everything has to be referred to their London office. Better value and service can be found by using travel companies like Peregrine, Intrepid, GAdventures. We travelled with Explore in 1995 to Mongolia (good trip but terrible British tour leader) and at that time we said never again. But this time we really mean it NEVER AGAIN. We wish we had read the other reviews on this website before we booked.

I started traveling with Explore in 2002, and had fantastic trips all over the Middle East and SEAsia. Jordan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma - all excellent. Well planned, good tour leaders who knew their stuff, jam-packed itineraries - there was one really dreadful trip to Lebanon with a leader who pretty-much phoned it in, but I figured that was an aberration.

However, a recent trip to Central America was frankly godawful. Frequent changes of hotels left us stranded in the middle of nowhere on more than one night, the tour leader who was otherwise great was happy enough to put the blame on the local agent, and when I wrote to Explore to complain I was offered $50 cash or $150 discount on a future trip. This is after 12+ trips with them.

It's clear that they're not looking for adventure travelers anymore - they're now aiming at the "soft adventure" market. I would say that the rot really set in when they were acquired by Cox & Kings (who have since sold them to HotelPlan UK) in 2011. Talking off the record to their tour leaders (who, let's face it, constitute the backbone of the operation) I hear that they are pretty shoddily treated, often left out of pocket for weeks after expenses, and the good ones are mostly jumping ship for other companies.

Unless and until Explore works out that there is still a strong market for people who want adventure, full days of activities and aren't expecting 5-star hotels, I'm shopping elsewhere. It's pretty clear that they're not interested in my kind of travel anymore - fortunately there are other companies that are. Sure, they're more expensive, but barreling along the Karakorum Highway in the back of a 4x4 with the top down comes at a price. That's what I want.

If you don't want the kind of "adventure" that leaves you needing a holiday at the end of it, then maybe Explore is for you.

It's a real shame - Explore used to be a great company, and I know many other people who have had great trips with them. Maybe Explore will improve since they were acquired by Hotelplan UK, but I have my doubts.

Explore Worldwide advertise this holiday as the trip of a lifetime. It ticked a lot of boxes: spectacular scenery, wonderful wildlife, good accommodation and good food. However, Explore cut a lot of corners on this trip. The tour leader doubled as the bus driver and cook and the assistant was newly trained and inexperienced i.e. not up to the task. The bus was a disaster. It was allegedly brand new bus as soon as it encountered rough terrain, it began to shake apart. The noise, vibration and dust ingress were intolerable and the agent in South Africa, Jenman (also to be avoided?)refused to replace the vehicle. For a tour duration of 25 days, we were subjected to these conditions for at least 15 of them, day after day. At one point, a fuel pipe fractured in the dessert miles from the nearest garage. The passengers were put at risk of skeletal damage and were stressed by the conditions.

We complained, of course, but Explore have refused to offer more than 10% of the cost in compensation.

A company called Exodus run very similar trips. Try them bvut check that the two companies are not related.

As stated above, have not started tour and they are trying to rewrite contract. I have booked online from Australia, which means I can only communicate with UK agent, even though they supposedly have an Australian outlet!!!

The tour provides airport pick up and end of tour transfers... but arrival transfer on same day do not work from Australia; therefore arranged and paid for my own as it was extremely cheaper than asking Explore to arrange.

The initial " final tour documentation" I received stated If i was to qualify for end of tour transfer to airport( which needed to occur on the last day) I had to advise flight details. I provided details; coming from Australia my flights are at the end of the day. Within 48hrs of providing these details I recieved new "final tour documentaion" which now stated in "bold" I have to provide my flight details by a certain time frame... which surprise surprise is outside of the timeframe I provided. I have sent emails confirming that they are trying to rewrite agreed contracts. BEAWARE..... they do not provide a decent service to Australian Customers; though in reading other reviews it's just not Australian customers they provide a poor service to. Will provide further feedback after tour.

We recently travelled with Explore in Vietnam, cycle Saigon to Hanoi (CVIE) promoted as a 'moderate' cycling holiday. Unfortunately...this is NOT a cycling tour but rather a BUS journey (i.e. more than 40h bus over the length of the trip + 15h overnight train journey). Don't expect much cycling on this trip, every day we had to step on the bus and occasionally we'd get on our bikes. Explore could argue that the km travelled are clearly stated on their itinerary, which is sort of correct. However the time spent on a bus MUST be specified -I've recorded 40h+ of bus -some days we spent 8h on the bus with occasional toilet breaks at roadside tourist shops. The elevation indicated on the itinerary is not the elevation to be cycled but the elevation travelled on that day and most usually by bus. The itinerary could be better designed to deliver optimal cycling route. There were some fantastic downhills over the mountains, I was upset not to do by bike, and were told it to be too dangerous even though we noticed other cyclist groups doing the dropped by bus on top and cycle down. We did this entire leg on the bus and stopped at the "top gear" spot that seems to appeal to most UK tourists...a sad picture to reduce the beauty of Vietnam to this.

The customer service at Explore has been unhelpful form the start, don't expect to speak to anyone other than when payment is due.

The trip was classified as "moderate" but some people on our tour should have been travelling on a "easy" or "easy to moderate"...and this overall made us spend a lot of our time waiting. We would usually cycle 1 hour then wait 1 hour to "regroup". Regadrless of a bus at hand to pick-up cyclists when feeling tired, the guide seems powerless in setting a time limit as to when one should get on the bus...on multiple days we arrived after sunset at our hotel and had our 6am morning call to depart next day. Everyone travels at its own pace, but in this instance it has created much delays and meant that we had no time to discover the towns we stayed in. I recommend to Explore to provide further clarity as the pace one should expect to cycle on various trips. The average pace of the major part of our group was 20-22km/h on flat (excluding photo breaks), where some people were struggling to maintain 15km/h (excluding photo breaks).

I have completed the Explore survey upon return and mentioned that 1) I would not book a holiday with Explore again, and 2) I would not recommend Explore to anyone. I have not heard back from Explore, hence I now provide public reviews online, as I imagine may trigger a little bit more interest.

I tried to book a holiday with Explore recently. I have used them many times before. I tried to find out flight times from them, because it's no use booking a holiday without knowing whether the flights are convenient. I asked over a week ago, with a follow up e-mail four days later. I still haven't had a reply. In the past couple of years their customer service has gone down the drain. They don't seem in the least bit interested in selling their holidays. Regretfully I'll have to book elsewhere. It's a shame, because they used to be such a good company.

Sicilian volcanoes was billed a walking trip but four of the seven nights were on Lipari, which has only a few short walks. Furthermore, our hotel was about 4 km from the main town. there was nothing to do in the vicinity of the hotel and the rooms were so cold I slept with my clothes on. I can only assume that the company decided to save money by booking a cheap hotel without any regard for customer experience. the local guide was absolutely wonderful.

I read the review below calling Explore a bunch of sharks, what nonsense. I had a similar experience in that I made a payment to them and then they were unable to book me into I think one or two of the hotels on the trip. I booked late so I think I was taking a chance anyway. The Sales people rang me and explained in great detail why the accommodation was not available, they were very apologetic and very friendly and understanding, obviously highly trained as one would expect from this type of Tour Operator. I decided that I would not book onto another of their tours immediately and asked for a refund. I too had paid by credit card so was worried that I would need to pay the bill before the refund was posted to my account, completely unnecessarily as it turned out since the refund was there within 3 days. I can only think that the person posting the previous review hit problems with his bank or perhaps the timing of the transaction. I have since travelled with this company and find them no short of excellent. It’s easy to give negative reviews when one is miffed but I try to be constructive and understanding. I would recommend anyone to use this Tour Operator.